paper

Niobium telluride absorber for a mode-locked vector soliton fiber laser

arXiv:2303.10299 · doi:10.1007/s11433-022-2058-3

Abstract

Niobium telluride (NbTe $_{2}$ ), an emerging transition metal dichalcogenide material, has been theoretically predicted to have nonlinear absorption properties and excellent optical response. However, only a few studies of the utilization of NbTe $_{2}$ in ultrafast photonics have been reported. In this work, a NbTe $_{2}$ -based saturable absorber (SA) was applied in an erbium-doped fiber as a mode-locked device, and a vector soliton based on NbTe $_{2}$ was obtained for the first time. NbTe $_{2}$ -PVA film SA was successfully prepared by the liquid-phase exfoliation and spin coating methods, with a modulation depth of up to 10.87%. The nonlinear absorption coefficient of NbTe $_{2}$ -based SA film tested through the open-aperture Z-scan laser measurement is 0.62. A conventional soliton with a pulse duration of 858 fs was generated using NbTe $_{2}$ -based SA, which was demonstrated to be a kind of polarization-locked vector soliton in further investigation. Our experimental results reveal the nonlinear optical properties of NbTe $_{2}$ and broaden its applications in ultrafast photonic devices.

9 pages, 7 figures